The end of the Skullcrushers, part 1

 Things looked grim when we last left our heroes. Goblins were aware of their position, the characters were standing right in the middle of said goblin's territory, and the rogue was quite badly injured.

Did they escape or die? Find out after this reminder about some of Solum's rules:

This is, in the interest of space and time, part 1 of this report. Part 2 will be available shortly.

Some rule reminders of import

First off, armour reduces the damage die by one or more die types. For example, a sword does D6 damage, but if you hit someone wearing light armour that is reduced to D4.

The second thing is this: A while back, I reduced the damage of all monsters by one die type, effectively reducing small creatures to a meek 1 damage (down from D4).

This session showed us that the combination of these two things may well make the game too easy, something that requires some thought, but more on that later...

The stakeout

The players decided that with the goblins knowing about them it was time for a last dash for the treasury, so rather than going deeper into the goblin den they turned around, and back into the very large hall wherein lies the treasury.

They extinguished a torch in the doorway on their way out (I mention it for a reason, don't worry :) and headed to the back of the treasury where the cleric showed them a place to climb with relative ease. They his on the roof, sort of waiting for the goblins to storm out and attack them.

But time went by and no movement was discernable. Suddenly the door on the other side of the hall opened and two goblins from the other tribe, the Nightcrawlers, snuck out. The rogue threw some old dice over towards the bridge, trying to draw attention away from the players. This seemed to work, as the two goblins went over the bridge and dissapered from sight.

A little while later the Skullcrusher door opened, and two goblins snuck out, taking the way past the treasury and into the mines. Again the PCs managed to avoid being seen.

Tension was building at this point, and the players decided, after lengthy discussions, to try and pick the door to the treasury.

Skill checks in Solum

In DND 4e skill checks are of the type "roll three successes before you roll two failures", and while there is a lot to dislike about 4e, that to me is a good takeaway.

I want something similar for tasks that take time, where a turn passes a roll is made and the gm rolls random encounters. It really helps to build tension, something that to me is imperative for the exploration phase of the game.

So here's what I came up with for now: I told the players it would take around one hour to pick the lock. It may be quicker if slower but that's the estimation. Each turn the rogue could roll for lockpicking. To succeed they need three successes. A failure negates a success and a critical failure breaks the pick and jams it, requiring another turn and success to undo.

On every other turn I would roll for encounters as normal...

It is surprising how effective this was, it really worked well as a tension builder and interesting project for the players.

The door

Said and done, the fighter lowered the rogue down to the door and he started working. He is an explorer, so he is a skilled lockpick, rolling with two dice. 

I was unsure of whether to use Agility or Logic, and in hindsight I think I choose incorrectly. For a simple lock, where the challenge isn't figuring out how it works, but to get the pick in the right position etc, Agility is fine. But in this case, the problem is figuring out how the lock works in the first place, so it should be Logic. Ah well, I said in the end that the player could choose which to use, and of course he choose Agility.

The roll, however, proved to be interesting. He rolled 2D8 with the result of 1 and 1, a catastrophic failure! 

He broke his pick and jammed it in the lock!

The next round he managed to undo the damage, but as he did the characters heard the door to the Skullcrushers open... Now, normally they would have seen what came out, but of course they took the torch away when they exited last, so the door was in darkness. They could hear boots, goblinoid grunts and swearing however.

The rogue was in the brightest spot in the hall, so the fighter started to pull him up while the cleric kept a lookout, sling ready.

Round 1 

They saw four goblins, but more could be in the dark still, three of which started shooting arrows at the rogue as he was being pulled up. Two hit, but did only one point of damage each.

Round 2

With the rogue up the players decided to lay down on the roof to make it harder for the goblin archers to hit them. The difficulty increased from three to five, so well done. Unfortunately I rolled like a train, with several exploding rolls rendering many hits. They players heard someone climbing up the wall too!

Round 3

As the big lug of a golbin (with 9 HP!) climbed up, the rogue ran at him and gave him a push, making him fall to the ground below! Basically, the goblins, while climbing up, can't defend themselves, making them easy targets for an initial attack (against a fixed difficulty). The goblin fell down, taking 11 damage and dying.

However, at the end of the round two more goblins came up without the players having a chance to react to them.

Round 4

Arrows kept raining in, nipping away at the characters. The cleric had poor aim today.

One of the goblins was a big lug, and the fighter engaged this one. The rogue took the other one. 

The figher hit her opponent, but he endured.

The rogue easily killed his goblin.

Round 5

The rogue ran to the cleric and asked for lamp oil, the cleric interrupted his sling shot to sort it out.

The fighter and goblin kept at it, circling each other and exchanging blows. The goblin got the upper hand this time, landing a good blow.

They heard both the doors to the two goblin tribes open!

Round 6

The rogue ran to the goblin and spat burning oil in his face, making him flail about in panic, finally falling over the edge and landing a second later with an unplesant crunch.

As the immediate danger was over they took a second to look down. Goblins poured out of the two doors, mostly clashing in the center of the hall, but some were scaling the walls to the tresury, and some were firing arrows, seemingly at random.

In each of the two doors stood sturdy, heavily built goblins, the two tribe's leaders, stood shouting orders and insults at each other.

As the round ended the fighter decided to try and smash in the roof of the tresury, while the rogue and cleric defended against the scaling goblins.

Round 7

The cleric hit one scaling goblin with a stone, felling it. Arrows flew harmlessly past the characters.

The rogue missed his chance to push his goblin down, making two goblins able to climb up.

The fighter hit the roof with all her might, but to no avail. She realised it would take hours, and several two handed hammers, to accomplish.

Round 8

The two goblins were swiftly dispatched of by the rogue and fighter. 

As they took stock, the realised that the Skullcrushers were loosing, and decided to try and take out their leader, possibly to gain the favour of the Nightcrawlers.

Round 9

They scaled the wall down on the back of the tresury while fighting raged in the centre of the hall.

Watch out for part 2! It will contain the exiting conclution of the battle for the Razor hill treasury! (And it will be available very soon (TM)... )